The Colorado River's Horseshoe Bend. The Colorado River system provides
municipal water for more than 30 million people in Arizona, California,
Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming and Mexico, but climate
change, drought, population growth and wildlife needs have heightened
competition for the system's limited water supplies.

A university think tank’s new report says Arizona hasn’t ignored its
water needs, but a return of rapid population growth to desert cities
will test the state, forcing consideration of significant changes in
lifestyle, particularly for affluent residents.

Some of those decisions could hit close to home for both current and
new residents because they involve the desires of many for
water-consuming landscaping and private swimming pools prevalent in the
Phoenix area, according to the report being released Thursday by the
Morrison Institute for Public Policy at Arizona State University.

The report discussed water supplies and use in the “Sun Corridor,” a
so-called “megapolitan” region of central and southern Arizona
stretching from Phoenix in Maricopa County on the north and southward
through Pinal County to Tucson in Pima County.